To me, his message was to always be thinking of what you desire. What you desire isn't the same as what others desire. Everyone's definition of happiness varies. I'm trying to say if everyone lived the message that Alan Watts so eloquently articulated, then there would be no "sacrifice". What one person thinks of as a sacrifice wasn't really a sacrifice in the eyes of the person who made it because they did what made them happy so that enables you to do what makes you happy.

Because people don't live according to his message right now, we make ourselves miserable by trying to repay the debts of other people's sacrifices for us. Rather, I would have it so we pay those debts forward to the next generation by enabling them to do what makes them happy, not holding them to some standard of what we think makes people happy just because we raised them or provided them with the means or money to do something they enjoyed.

By saying one is obligated to someone else, I think it implies that the reciprocal action by the receiver would require compromising one's own happiness in some way. By that token, I think this statement is totally reasonable because ultimately, both parties lose some of their own happiness. That was probably an outcome neither of them wanted.

Nope, but I've finally made a life that works for me with a job I love that lets me travel the world like I want and still accomplish something meaningful. :)